


When Wands Collide

by aibidil, frnklymrshnkly



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Training, Awkward Conversations, Black-family heirlooms, Boggarts, Bone Broth, Bulking, Crack, Dissertations, Established Relationship, FOWL, Feminism, Fist Fights, Grimmauld Place, HP: EWE, Humor, Literature, M/M, Minor Hermione Granger/Millicent Bulstrode, Nut etiquette, Offscreen Felching, Patronus, Post-Hogwarts, Roommates, Self-Doubt, Sun God Ra, Underwhelming Chivalry, Vienettas, Witching smut, bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 11:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13099362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aibidil/pseuds/aibidil, https://archiveofourown.org/users/frnklymrshnkly/pseuds/frnklymrshnkly
Summary: Will Harry teach Draco to produce a Patronus? Will Ron and Harry's friendship survive? Will Hermione finish her dissertation? Will Cormac achieve a new Clean and Jerk PR?





	When Wands Collide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TDCat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TDCat/gifts).



> Happy Holidays, **tdcat**! We present you with this crack as a token of our gratitude for you and all you bring to our corner of fandom. Thank you for your labour, for being an incredible source of support to authors and artists, for your incomparable beta skills, for running the Comment-A-Thon, and for generally working toward a more positive fandom. You are an ace Drarry Squadder and a quality human. 
> 
> And thanks to **gracie137** and **magpiefngrl** for giving this a quick once-over!

Harry’s face is in his palm and he’s shaking his head. A week ago, he hadn’t realised that it was actually possible to reach a point of exasperation at which even holding up one’s own head became too much. He’d thought that was a bunch of rubbish from melodramatic films. But here he is: face well acquainted with hand.

An anguished throat-noise echoes around the cleared-out drawing room at Grimmauld Place, and Harry is cheered, ever so slightly, by the knowledge that Ron is suffering too. Perhaps when he musters the strength to support his head using only his neck, he will find that Ron has also become a parody of despair. This is, after all, entirely Ron’s fault for dating Cormac fucking McLaggen.

The possibility of Ron’s contemporaneous suffering energises Harry enough to return his gaze to the scene unfolding in the drawing room. _My drawing room_ , he thinks, bitterly, _before my house was_ invaded _._

Harry is grimly unsurprised to find that naught has changed in the last minute or so.

“You need to work on your wand movement, Malfoy,” Ron says, his worn-down expression lifting slightly as he admonishes Draco, “You’re summoning a Patronus, not conducting a symphony.”

“Pfft. Like you’ve ever seen a symphony, Weasley,” Draco counters, voice condescending.

“I like the 1812 Overture. That shit’s intense,” Cormac adds.

“I know!” Ron agrees, enthusiastically. He and Cormac share a high-five.

Harry is fairly sure he can detect the sound of Draco’s eyes rolling in their sockets.

“You’re all wrong,” Hermione chimes in from her corner armchair. “The 1812 Overture is rubbish. And when it comes to the Patronus Charm, the memory behind the spell matters far more than the wand movement. You need to be decisive in picking one transcendently happy memory.”

This seems to be all she has to contribute on the matter, as she flips a page of the paperback she’s holding and continues to read.

“Aren’t you supposed to be helping us?” Harry demands. “If you’re going to boss us around, come over here and do it properly. Can’t you see Cormac’s hopeless—”

“Draco’s the one—” Ron begins, but Hermione cuts him off.

“Don’t use that term, Harry. Bossiness is a social construction applied to women to diminish their power, especially in traditionally patriarchal relationships and environments.”

“Nevermind all that,” Draco says dismissively. “Aren’t you supposed to be dissertating, Granger?”

“Fuck that. What’s happening now, Hermione?” Cormac asks eagerly.

“The Hit Wizard and the Unspeakable have been forced to share a bed.” Hermione answers quickly, her voice infused with indecent relish.

“Why—” Harry begins to ask, but he’s drowned out.

“WICKED!” Cormac exclaims.

Draco jumps slightly, startled. Harry only grimaces—he’s become used to Cormac’s ejaculations since he moved in. Harry now lives in the brace position. This depresses him.

“They’ll be fucking in no time,” Cormac says, sounding self-assured. “BJs at least.”

“Most likely,” Hermione agrees. “I’ve read this author before; they favour a slow-burn, and this UST has been drawing out for 200 pages.”

Cormac continues to grill Hermione for more details, and Harry thinks that he might have been hasty to blame the _entire_ situation on Ron. Hermione isn’t helping. Her sole function at this point seems to be giving Cormac updates about the smut du jour. Of course, Cormac is hardly blameless himself. If he weren’t a lummox with the attention span of a doxy, he’d be ready for his exam by now. They’d be on their way to becoming full-fledged Aurors. Which reminds Harry that, while he’s apportioning blame, Robards deserves a large helping.

xXx

The week before, Robards had given a speech to the recruits informing them that they could not complete their exams the following week without producing a corporeal Patronus. What’s more, they were to work toward this goal in groups to foster the spirit of teamwork and camaraderie necessary for every Auror in the field.

This was just Harry’s life, really. He’d been able to produce a Patronus since he was thirteen. He’d helped teach Ron, too, not to mention the entire DA. But now that very skill was going to be what brought him down, because Draco and Cormac could not produce Patronuses, and Harry seriously doubted his and Ron’s ability to teach them. He loved Draco, but Harry was hardly blind to Draco’s inability to receive instruction well. The suggestion that there were things he didn’t know or couldn’t do always seemed to trigger Draco’s defensive streak. And as for Cormac, well… Harry just doubted Cormac’s ability to learn anything.

“Excuse me, sir, if I may,” Draco had said, and without waiting for a response added, “why has the Auror Department decided that Patronuses are necessary for field work? In past years they were not a mandatory part of the exam.”

“Trainee Malfoy,” Robards had said, looking over the rim of his glasses, “if you were incapacitated in the line of duty, would _you_ want to be partnered with an Auror who could not repel a Dementor? And perhaps more to the point, even if there wasn’t a Dementor in the vicinity, would you want to be partnered with an Auror who could not perform complicated magic, or who could not find the mental fortitude to concentrate on something as strenuous as a happy memory?”

That had been entirely too philosophical and had thrown Draco into a strop for three days.

After Robards’s talk, Harry fell back on old habits—he immediately went to discuss the problem with Ron—and this had been his crucial mistake. He should’ve run directly to the sign-up sheet and thrown his lover and Ron’s under the Knight Bus.

Instead, Harry had tried, cautiously, to tell Ron that he had no desire to be involved with helping Cormac, and Ron had angrily whispered back that though they were friends he wasn’t keen on helping Malfoy either. Without attracting their attention, Cormac had bounded himself to the sign-up, Draco following agitatedly and muttering about having to “make sure the imbecile doesn’t try to split up Harry and me.”

Harry and Ron’s plotting was interrupted by their return.

“Bros,” Cormac enthused, holding his arms out wide as if to indicate that he was accepting praise, “the four of us are a team! Can we call ourselves the Fearless Foursome? Put er there! This is gonna be sick. I hope my Patronus is a great white. Or a panther. Or a fox—those fuckers are sly little beasts. They’d definitely hold their own against a mid-sized dog.”

Ron’s mouth fell open. “Hey!” he said, defensively.

“No worries, no worries,” Cormac quickly soothed, leaning in. “I love your mid-sized dog, babe.” He pressed his lips behind Ron’s ear. Ron tipped his head back, apparently forgetting about his alliance with Harry and his desire to avoid helping Draco.

Harry, who’d been cringing since he heard the words “Fearsome Foursome,” locked eyes with Draco. The look they shared clearly read: _Fucking hell._

xXx

After being dismissed by Robards, Harry, who felt rather more fearful than fearsome about the possible outcomes of this situation, returned to Grimmauld Place with his best friend, lover, and unwanted-flatmate-cum-self-appointed-team-captain.

“Babe, I’m going to throw a couple chickens into the oven to slow-roast while we’re at the gym. Can you mix up some protein shakes? What do you say, Haz, Drake? You up for it, lads?” Cormac, the loathsome gymrat, never failed to invite Harry and Draco along despite their increasingly insistent refusals.

Harry was more interested in consuming calories than burning them, and Draco insisted that “Malfoys do not frequent gyms.” According to Draco (i.e., Narcissa), the aristocracy exercised exclusively by means of constitutionals on the grounds of their estates and, if the weather was suitable, swims in the ponds and rivers that peppered or ran through said landscapes.

“No,” Harry said.

“Never call me ‘Drake’ again,” Draco instructed, simultaneously.

“You sure?” Cormac pressed with undiminished enthusiasm.

“Absolutely,” Harry affirmed.

“Great! You can watch the chickens,” Cormac informed them, before clapping Harry on the shoulder and then striding down the hall toward the kitchen with a swagger that made Harry wish he’d never got rid of the troll-leg umbrella stand so that he’d have a selection of ready implements with which to kneecap him.

“Ron,” Harry began, just as Ron moved to follow Cormac. “Do you have to go to the gym right now? I thought we could talk about how we’re going to do this. You’re supposed to be the one who’s good at strategy.”

“Thanks, mate. But you taught a whole group of us in fifth year, you know? You’ll be fine. And I have to get some gym time in with Cor.”

“But you were there this morning,” Harry observed, fruitlessly.

xXx

The day following Cormac’s Rash Decision, Harry convened the group in the drawing room, and set them to clearing the furniture out, minus the massive oak wardrobe-with-Boggart that Remus and Moody had failed to banish in the wake of Mrs. Weasley’s meltdown. Draco at once set to work Levitating pieces out, while Cormac began manually lifting the heaviest pieces, asking Ron after each lift: “See that, babe? No hesitation.” Harry prayed to the hernia gods for a karmic smiting.

After the room was cleared out, just a few pieces of furniture pressed up against the walls, Harry began to instruct them in the basics.

“The first thing you need to do is think of something happy—one really happy memory that makes you relive the feeling you had the first time around.”

“Sweet. I did a 115 kilo Clean and Jerk yesterday and Frankie couldn’t match me. I’ll use that.”

Harry tried to keep his face neutral as he said, “Probably a feat of strength isn’t going to be a strong enough memory. It needs to have an emotional significance.”

Draco was staring at his hands clasped on his lap and Harry had a moment of wanting to forget Cormac entirely and do anything it took to help Draco produce a Patronus. Draco was clearly torn up over this whole Patronus debacle, though he was trying to hide it, and it made Harry’s chest ache.

He was about to drag Draco up to their bedroom for a private lesson when Cormac brought him back to reality.

“Ha! That’s a good one, Hazza. I know you know how emotional I get about my PRs.”

Ron was sprawled on a sofa. “Alright, this is boring. Let’s just try it. Here, maybe you need a demonstration.” He sat up, his red hair mussed and his muscular, freckled arms flexing as he waved his hand around demonstratively. “Malfoy, Cory, are you watching?”

Harry caught Draco’s eye; they had an ongoing challenge wherein they kept a weekly tally of the number of times Ron called Cormac “Cory.” At the start of each week, they would make an official guess and, at the end of the week, whoever was closest to the actual number of “Corys” was excused from cooking for the next week. Draco raised his eyebrow: they were already at fourteen.

Draco looked reluctantly at Ron, and Cormac dropped into a squat, rested his chin on his knuckles, and stared with rapt attention.

“Alright, so you really have to let the experience of the memory overtake you,” Ron said, closing his eyes. “Almost like, imagine that you’re in a Pensieve. And then I just let that feeling wash over me, and _Expecto Patronum!_ ”

Ron’s terrier burst from the tip of his wand and immediately ran to Cormac. The magical energy of the Patronus knocked Cormac backward out of his squat and onto his back, and Cormac burst into laughter as the terrier licked at his face and neck.

“Wicked, Ron!” Cormac cried through his laughter. “You are so impressive!”

Ron looked pleased with himself, but Draco was pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Weasley, you didn’t tell me anything that could possibly be helpful. I’ve read all of that before.”

Ron, who had been smiling broadly watching Cormac and his spirit guardian, frowned. “You know what, Malfoy? I don’t think you’re even trying. I think you’re scared that if you really try your best memory, that it will fail.”

Oh, fuck. Harry watched as Draco’s face became ever more pinched and posh—a sure sign of incandescent rage—and Ron, ears red, straightened to his full height. Oh, _fuck._

Harry was saved from intervening by the roar of the Floo and the emergence of Hermione holding a paperback. She stepped off the hearth directly between Ron and Draco, and if she noticed that they had been about to hex each other, she didn’t say anything.

“Millie said if I wasn’t going to work I had to leave the flat because I was distracting her,” she announced, by way of greeting.

Harry stepped forward and folded her into a warm embrace. “Thank fuck you’re here,” he whispered. “You can help with Patronus lessons!”

Hermione smiled wickedly. “I don’t think so, Harry,” she said, patting his arm. “I don’t do your schoolwork anymore, remember? I did bring some chocolate!”

She reached into her bag and pulled out a large Dairy Milk bar. She Levitated it to the table that was pushed to the side of the room and sat herself in an armchair they’d pushed into the far corner.

Cormac immediately ripped into the chocolate and hit it with a Severing Charm, using a bit too much magical energy and blasting a quarter of the bar into tiny flakes. “Sweet, chips! We can make some cookies!”

Draco winced at the mess and muttered something under his breath about only eating 72% cacao or higher.

“Hermione, I thought you were supposed to be working on your dissertation,” Ron said—stupidly, in Harry’s opinion, because Hermione had actually worn a t-shirt that said “DON’T ASK ME ABOUT MY DISSERTATION” to the last Weasley gathering.

“Don’t you start on me, too, Ronald! I get it enough from Millie.” She waved her hand. “I’ll finish it eventually. Self-care is important.”

“Hell yes!” Cormac said, Levitating a chunk of chocolate over to Hermione. It hit her in the face, but she just grabbed it out of the air and popped it into her mouth. “Self care is porn books,” he added, sagely.

"Witching erotica," Hermione corrected, but she was smiling.

"But I thought it was two blokes," Ron said, sounding confused.

"It is, Ron. But it's the principle.” Hermione’s smile had vanished. “‘Wizarding’ has been used, falsely, as gender-neutral term. It has normalised male as the socio-linguistic default. And I'm not having it."

“That’s wicked, bro,” Cormac said, “I’m down for using ‘witching’ instead of ‘wizarding’—it sounds like ‘bitchin.’ As long as witches remember that it’s totally uncool to fetishise the sexuality of gay men.” He paused. “Not that I blame you, of course,” he added, trailing his hand from his pec to his knee.

Hermione opened her mouth to respond, probably with a long discussion of how she personally tries to avoid fetishisation, if Harry knew her at all, but Cormac spoke before she had a chance. “So are they fucking yet? In the book. Please tell me there’s rimming.”

“Yes, yes,” Draco said impatiently, “everyone loves a rimjob, but we have our own job to be getting on with. Our actual job—the one we will no longer have if you and I don’t learn this charm.”

Hermione looked slightly put out, as though she’s been denied a special treat, but Harry’d be damned before letting this omnishambles draw out any longer than absolutely necessary.

“Draco’s right,” Harry said, smiling at Draco and pointedly ignoring Ron’s scoff, “we need to get back on track. Cormac, what are you using as your memory?”

xXx

By day five of their new training regime, Harry was wishing for death—specifically, Cormac’s. They hadn’t even bothered unleashing the Boggart yet, because Cormac and Draco still couldn’t conjure anything beyond mist. In fact, Draco’s Patronus had become even less substantial in the past couple of days. From the consistency of pea soup it had thinned to broth. Ron hadn’t yet noticed; Harry was sure if he had he’d have been like a dog with a bone. In any case, Cormac was making his daily case for letting the Boggart out.

“You know how it is, Haz,” he argued, with as much zest, Harry noted with disgust, as the first time he’d mentioned it, “when you’re scared you can do magic you’ve never even learned. It’s like some primal, bizarre shit. So just bust open the wardrobe and let’s do this!”

Ron, usually firmly in Cormac’s corner, was forced to hedge, presumably motivated by the possibility of coming face to face with an Acromantula if the Boggart turned its attention from Harry to him. “Harry might be right, babe. If we let the Boggart out, we’ll have to deal with it, and if you can’t cast a corporeal Patronus, Harry and I will have to conjure ours before Harry passes out.”

“Hey!” Harry objected. “I haven’t passed out in _years_ , thank you very much!”

“Do you think dying counts?” Hermione asked as she walked into the drawing room, omnipresent paperback in one hand and a greasy paper bag in the other.

“Hermione!” Harry spluttered.

“Honestly, I’m not sure it matters either way, since you lost consciousness in Godric’s Hollow last Christmas, which was less than a year ago anyway,” she continued over Harry’s protests.

“Bro, what’s in the bag?” Cormac inquired.

“Doughnuts, _sis_ ,” Hermione answered.

“Fuck, yes! You beast!” Cormac held up his hand, and Hermione smacked it with a smile. “You remembered we’re bulking!”

Hermione opened the bag, made her selection first, and handed it over to Cormac. Then she headed to the corner armchair she’d claimed as her own.

“So what’s the deal with the Hit Wizard and the Unspeakable?” Cormac asked through a mouthful of doughnut.

“They’ve been accidentally bonded to one another; they have to stay in the same room at all times or suffer physical agony.”

“Hermione, that is ridiculous,” Ron protested.

At the same moment, Draco raised an interested eyebrow and speculated, “They suffer physical agony if they’re apart? Circe. Sounds like the perfect plot vehicle for accelerated relationship development. Is the Unspeakable grappling with the fundamental incoherence of the concept of free will?”

“Yes!” Hermione cried, looking up from her book. “He works in the Hall of Prophecy and—”

“For fuck’s sake!” Harry cried, and four pairs of wide eyes turned to him. “Ron, please help me out, mate. I need your help herding kneazles here. Hermione, and I say this as a person who considers you his best friend, get the fuck out if you’re going to distract us—I don’t care what Millie says. Cormac, er, keep your eye on the ball, bro—it’s like you’re about to attempt a deadlifting PR and you need to be completely in the zone, and, er, listening to me is like your protein shake? Draco, I _really_ want to discuss your interest in Hermione’s erotica, but can we please do it after you’ve used your considerable intelligence and substantial magical skill to produce a Patronus? I promise you that I will make it worth your while.”

It took a moment for everyone to respond to Harry’s monologue. Ron looked chastised; Hermione looked amused; Cormac looked thoughtful; Draco looked at Harry with hungry eyes.

“Will you make it worth _my_ while, Harry?” Ron teased after a silent interval.

Trying to suppress a sigh, Harry raised his gaze to the ceiling. There was a fucking dagger up there that he appeared to have missed when cleaning this place; wonderful. “Sure,” he said, returning his gaze to his friends and making a mental note to get Draco to deal with the possibly cursed Black-family heirloom, “if you all behave and we can get Draco and Cormac producing Patronuses, I will owe you all. To be clear, only Draco can cash in with sex acts.”

“You need to talk about the memories they’re using,” Hermione said to Harry, looking for once as if she were actually trying to help. “You remember what it was like if you tried without a strong enough memory.”

Harry _did_ remember. He remembered it felt like magic itself was telling him that his happiest memory wasn’t good enough, and fuck if _that_ was a good feeling. And he had been thirteen and had the benefit of being assured that no one expected him to succeed because he was too young. Draco didn’t have age or inexperience or lack of skill to hide behind—all he had was the feeling that his best memories were somehow being objectively assessed as not good enough. Harry’s heart clenched for him; poor Draco. And Cormac, too, he hastily appended.

“Alright, Draco, come with me to the kitchen. Cormac, talk with Ron. We’re going to talk about the memories you’re using. Hermione, you just keep reading your….”

When Harry trailed off inarticulately, Hermione volunteered, “Wizards in forced proximity with soulmate identifying marks?”

“Yes,” Harry said with a smile, and grabbed Draco’s wrist to lead him to the kitchen. As they left the drawing room, they heard Cormac telling Ron about the memory he’d been using, which apparently involved burpees, his mum, and Ron sitting on the sofa eating cookies.

“They’re driving me round the bend, Harry,” Draco said in the corridor. “If I have to look at McLaggen doing that pectoral bouncing thing while people are talking one more time…”

“I can’t believe he claimed he was doing that subconsciously!” Harry agreed. “That can’t be possible, right?”

“Nobody could expect me to cope with this,” Draco pronounced. Suddenly a look of horror dawned on his face. “You don’t think he does that in the bedroom, do you?”

“Sweet fuck, ew!” Harry gasped, laughing. “But Draco. Seriously. What memory are you using?”

They entered the kitchen, and Harry leaned against the counter nearest the cooker while Draco kept his hands busy making tea. Harry watched him cast a warming charm on the Brown Betty before adding a few spoonfuls of leaves.

They hadn’t spoken since they’d entered the kitchen, and though less than a minute had probably passed, the silence felt thick to Harry. Draco enjoyed share time about as much as an Unspeakable, which wasn’t to say that he stonewalled Harry emotionally. Over the months he had opened up more and more, but always in his own time and on his own terms. Harry knew that being effectively forced to share something so profoundly personal would have Draco’s teeth on edge. The least Harry could do was let him initiate the conversation.

Draco tapped the kettle with his wand to heat the water to near boiling and poured it into the pot. Harry opened the cupboard above the counter he was leaning on and extracted two mugs (the one that declared “I’m Discreetly Gay” and the one with a glamour shot of Oliver in his Puddlemere United kit that inquired whether or not the reader had “Got Wood?”).

He carried them to the table and took a seat. Draco brought the tea pot, returned to the counter for milk and sugar, and finally sat himself opposite Harry. In the middle of pouring steaming tea into their mugs he stated simply, “I don’t have a memory. I can’t do this.” His affected tone of nonchalance was completely unconvincing, largely because his voice quavered and his eyes filled with tears.

A slightly aggressive “Excuse me?” escaped Harry before he could stop it. He took a deep breath to steady himself and placed his hand on Draco’s, gently guiding the teapot back down to the table, but not letting go once Draco’s hand was free of the pot. Harry tried again. “This whole time? You’ve been casting without a memory?”

“Sort of,” Draco admitted. “At first I’d think of happy memories, like you said, like everyone says. But they just…” He trailed off and made a resigned gesture with his free hand.

Harry waited. That was the key to getting Draco’s two knuts, he’d learned. Shut up and listen.

Draco took his hand back from Harry and clasped the back of his neck with it, scrubbing the skin back and forth as he contorted his mouth a bit, almost as if he were rolling the words around in his mouth, testing them out, before giving them voice.

Finally, Draco closed his eyes and said, “It’s the war, you know?”

Harry just nodded. Wasn’t it always? He kept eye contact with Draco, determined to show he was fully focussed on listening.

“The first few memories that came to mind were, well, they were sort of happy. Some spoiled rotten birthdays. The time my father got the whole Slytherin team Nimbus 2001s. The moment I finally got the badges just right.” He shook his head at himself and scoffed. “Basically, a bunch of times I was a prick. So that made me feel—not great. Not happy. Not Patronusy. I figured I’d switch to this past year. Some times with you.” A faint blush coloured his cheeks. “But the thing is,” he closed his eyes and paused a moment—apparently steeling himself. “Thing is those memories just made me feel undeserving of the happiness I felt.” He let out a breath and looked at Harry again. “So yeah, for the last couple days I’ve just been casting pointlessly. That’s why my mist has been become even thinner than ‘Cory’s,’” he finished, punctuating the pet name with air quotes.

The feeble joke suggested to Harry that Draco had said his piece. Harry had no response, however. In the first place, he _had_ noticed that Draco’s mist had thinned, and had been hoping Ron would not. It also hit Harry for the first time since they’d applied to the Auror corps that they might not make it in together. It sounded a lot like Draco needed more assistance than camaraderie (whatever Robards said) or sexual encouragements and DADA advice from an eighteen-year-old, unqualified tutor who’d never even graduated or earned a single N.E.W.T.

Draco, blinking back tears that had not broken the water line, took Harry’s hand again and gave it a squeeze. “Thanks,” he said, “for trying.”

“Bros!” Cormac ejaculated as he threw the kitchen door open with a clatter, “I’m bulking and that doughnut set off a mad craving. I’m having an entire Vienetta. Sorry, babe, I’m not sharing,” he added, for the benefit of Ron, who had followed him into the kitchen.

Ron looked ready to take issue with that pronouncement, but Cormac quickly added, “Psych! I got two.” He glanced at Harry and Draco and winced. “Sorry Drazzle, I didn’t do you a solid and buy four. Should we run to Tescos?”

xXx

Yesterday, Harry, at his wits’ end, decided it was time to try the Boggart.

“Fucking finally! Excellent!” Cormac yelled, punching the air. Ron looked at him with fond exasperation, though he also seemed eager to try the Boggart at this point.

Harry was reluctant, and not just because he didn’t want to feel the prickling terror that always crept up his spine in the presence of a Dementor, Boggart or not. Draco’s poshly bored demeanor, which he’d been wearing since he admitted to Harry that he wasn’t even trying, indicated resignation. He didn’t give a fuck about the Boggart one way or another.

“Hermster, are you at a good stopping point?” Cormac called toward the armchair, where Hermione’s face was buried in her book. “You don’t want to miss this epic Boggart smackdown.”

Hermione raised her head. She seemed torn over whether she wanted to continue reading or watch the smackdown. “The Unspeakable just found out he’s part veela,” she said, eyes darting back to the page.

“Don’t let us interrupt,” Ron said with a dramatic sigh. “It’s only careers on the line over here.”

“Ignore Ron,” Cormac said. “You do you, Herm. Don’t nut on our furniture though. That goes against the bro code.”

Draco opened his eyes from where he’d been lounging imperiously on a piece of furniture he insisted on calling a “divan,” much to Harry’s consternation. “There’s a gentleman’s agreement concerning orgasm-furniture etiquette?”

Hermione sighed, but the talk about nutting and gentleman’s agreements seemed to solidify her resolve to help with the smackdown. Harry wondered if she felt the group would fail without a witch’s involvement. Looking at Cormac, he had to wonder if that was a correct assessment. Hermione put her book down and joined the group.

“Alright, so I will open the wardrobe,” Harry said, “standing in front so the Boggart will take the shape of a Dementor. Cormac and Draco can take turns practicing. You can go first, Cormac. Be ready to cast when I open the cabinet. Ron and Hermione will be on standby to cast _Riddikulus_ if needed.”

The group nodded in agreement.

“Are we ready?” Harry asked.

“Just a sec,” Cormac requested, turning to grab Ron by his t-shirt (which read “Chudle My Cannon”—definitely not licensed merchandise) and pulling him in for an enthusiastic snog. After a moment, Cormac pushed Ron away with vigor, heaved in a breath, and crowed, “Do it, Haz!”

Harry raised his wand and Cormac took that as his sign to drop into a lunge, his own wand raised.

Harry braced himself for the appearance of the Dementor, but when he opened the cabinet, a Dementor did not appear.

Hermione’s, Ron’s, and Draco’s bodies lay on the ground. Hermione’s and Ron’s forms were totally lifeless, but Draco’s form held its head up wobblingly to say, “It’s all your fault, Potter,” and fell to the ground with a sickening thud.

Harry’s hand flew to his chest, which felt like it was in a vice, and he gasped a stilted inhale. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think, a tremendous sense of terror dripped down his body.

Harry’s mind was jarred from it’s horrified stupor by the image of Draco—the living Draco—rushing in front him. “Harry, it’s not real,” he said, his voice strong and sure, and the terror began to dissipate as Draco pulled him into an embrace.

The lifeless bodies of Hermione and Ron suddenly disappeared, but dead Draco stood up wearing a malicious sneer that Harry hadn’t seen since about 1995. He stalked towards the real Draco, spitting, “Harry doesn’t love you. How could you think you’re good enough for him? You’re going to fail your training exam and end up destitute, an embarrassment to your parents, with no Harry, and it’s exactly what you deserve—”

Harry and Draco stood with open mouths, watching in horror, but Hermione and Cormac sprang into action, both jumping in front of Draco.

The form of Boggart Draco swirled longer than usual, confused between Hermione and Cormac’s fears until it rematerialised as Molly Weasley, who shouted anxiously, “I’m never going to finish my dissertation!”

Ron, mercifully, shouted “ _Riddikulus!_ ” Molly’s flowery dress morphed into Ginny’s Quidditch kit, and Ron laughed at the image, banishing the Boggart back to the cabinet.

He slowly turned to the group, crossed his arms over his chest, and raised his eyebrows.

Harry reached out an arm, pulling Draco in, and wrapped him in a tight embrace. Draco squeezed back like he was never going to let go.

As Harry watched Ron pull Cormac and Hermione into a hug, he whispered in Draco’s ear, “None of that is true.”

“I _know_ that, you pillock,” Draco sneered, but his trembling and his tightening of the embrace belied his words. Softer, he added, “Your Boggart changed.”

Harry didn’t have time to answer, because Cormac shouted, “I’m shaking like a fucking leaf, bros. Boggart was a di-fucking-sasterous idea. Ron, get the Firewhiskey. Herm, get the chocolate. Drizzle, go get us some potions, some Calming Draught? You don’t have any gillyweed, do you? We’ll bev up and chocolate up and then Hermizzle can read aloud about the bonded veela Unspeakable’s quest to bang his soulmate.”

Harry knew Draco was really shaken because he didn’t react to “Drizzle.”

xXx

“We need to focus,” Harry informs the room at large, firmly clapping his hands once to draw attention back from Hermione and Cormac’s excited conversation about unresolved sexual tension.

“Cor—” Harry reaches for a nickname, but comes up short, “er, -mac, Hermione gave us a live reading yesterday. And no one is getting another one until I see a Patronus from you. Consider it positive reinforcement: produce for porno.”

“Nice!” Cormac bellows in utmost approval, “I can work with that, Haz,” he agrees, holding up a hand, which Harry smacks in the desperate hope that putting Cormac in a good enough mood might help to realise at least one Patronus today.

After bevving and chocolating up the prior evening, Hermione had read aloud from _When Wands Collide_ , which left he and Draco (and Ron and Cormac, he tries to forget) randy as fuck. Harry is also nursing a sliver of hope that the impassioned fucking he got up to with Draco afterward (Harry’s nothing if not a talker) might just supply Draco with a happy enough memory to produce something substantial today. If “I love you. Get in me,” doesn’t drive home Harry’s desire to give himself to Draco, and Draco’s deservingness to have him, he doesn’t know what will.

“So obviously we’re going for Patronuses without a Boggart. This will increase your chances of success, especially if you spent last night and this morning thinking about the best possible memory to use like I told you to.”

“Got it locked and loaded, Hazza,” Cormac assures him. And, because he possesses neither shame nor filter, he informs them all: “I’m going with the memory of Ron letting me felch him after Herz read us the scene where the Unspeakable caved and demanded a bath, and the Hit Wizard had to sit on the toilet and pretend he wasn’t perving, despite the Unspeakable’s sexy veela charms.”

Harry can’t decide whether Ron or Draco look more horrified at the overshare.

“Felching!?” Draco screeches. “Are you two _trying_ to be a stereotype of plebian debauchery?”

“Don’t kink shame them, Draco,” Hermione admonishes. “Class certainly influences our desires, because they’re social constructions and thus informed by our upbringings and environments, et cetera. But felching is hardly exclusively the purview of the proletariat.”

“Right on, H-bomb,” Cormac says, raising a fist in salute.

“Yeah, fuck off, Malfoy,” Ron adds, defensively, his face and ears reddening in mortification. “Just because Harry won’t—”

“Ron, drop it,” Harry says, in a tone approximating his best year-five aggro. He can’t let this get out of hand. Not after what Draco admitted in the kitchen two days ago. And not after the emotions that he himself had poured out just last night, in bed with Draco (well, up against the wall).

“Come off it, Harry. You can’t protect him when he says shit like that.”

“I said drop it, Ron. Let it go. If Cormac hadn’t let the whole world know—”

“Oh right, like it’s any secret what goes on in _your_ bedroom? Or in the loo? Or the kitchen that one time. Ever heard of a _Silencio_ or a privacy charm, mate? Not mention the issue of getting off in the kitchen in its own right.”

“Yeah, that’s not cool, Haz. Definite breach of nut etiquette. We eat in there, bro. _Molly_ eats in there when she comes over with treacle tart,” Cormac adds gravely.

“Yeah, my mum eats in there!” Ron agrees, adopting this new stream of complaint and piling on.

“If you all haven’t noticed, this is _my house_ , where you all live, rent free. And if you want to talk about the kitchen, let’s discuss how I haven’t been able to cook properly since you moved in because Cormac is always roasting at least four of some animal and the cooker is covered in pots of simmering bone broth!”

“Come off it, Harry! Cory always offers you a chicken. It’s not his fault you’re determined to eat anti-nutrients! And you know that bone broth is for the good of all our digestion!”

“It’s true, Haribo,” Cormac affirms with a solemn nod. “Drink up and thank me later when you’re not restricted to a diet of stewed prunes by seventy-five.”

“I really have to insist that you all shut up,” Hermione commands, apparently unable to focus on the Hit Wizard and the veela-Unspeakable’s negotiations of shared bed space over all the spleen venting.

“Hermione, if it’s too loud in here, go read somewhere else. Like the sitting room. Or your flat,” Harry says, impatiently.

“Don’t you start on her too!” Ron says, apparently spoiling to continue fighting, regardless of the topic.

“Ron, I’m warning you, I’m at my wits’ end as it is,” Harry says, marching up to Ron and invading his personal space by an inch or two.

In response, Ron puffs himself up, seemingly channeling Cormac’s best cock-of-the-walk stance. Considering his height and the gym time he’s been putting in, it’s a much more impressive gesture than Harry’s. Not that Harry’s going to show any sign of noticing.

“No, I’m warning you. If your boyfriend doesn’t lay off about my family... Mum and Dad aren’t even poor anymore, for fuck’s sake!”

“First off, Draco isn’t my boyfriend. He’s my lover and my partner and, for reasons that defy explanation right now, he shares the spot of my best mate with Hermione and you.” Harry practically expatriates the last word. “And second, getting pissed off like this is not helping. We’ve got a… a mission here that literally requires we all be happy, if you care to recall.”

“Right, and we’ll all be happy once Malfoy apologises,” Ron states with heels firmly dug in.

“For what? Being horrified? I’m horrified too! _You’re_ horrified—you look like a quaffle! That’s why we’re having a non-marital domestic right now: because you’re mortified and you’re taking it out on Draco.”

“He’s right, Weasley. One doesn’t discuss these things outside the sanctity of the conjugal bed,” Draco says, and it sounds like a recitation. To be more specific, it sounds like a recitation of one of Narcissa’s reflexive remonstrances. Harry wonders what kinds of raunchy sex acts Draco must have mentioned in front of his mother to have earned a lecture on the etiquette of sex-talk within polite, pure-blood society.

“That’s it!” Ron shouts, and turns toward Draco.

Harry steps back in front of Ron, placing himself bodily between him and Draco.

“Look lads, let’s all take five, cool our jets, and have a mulligan here, yeah?” Cormac suggests.

“Seconded,” says Hermione.

“Not until he apologises!” Ron bellows, face reaching Verson-Dursleyesque shades of purple as he steps closer and looms over Harry.

Harry refuses to back down, though, despite his disadvantages in height and muscle mass. He’s survived Voldemort on multiple occasions. He’s not going down now.

“Don’t you go near him, Ron,” Harry says levelly, deadly serious.

The two of them stare at each other, each challenging the other to give in.

Finally, at what seems to be the same moment, the tension breaks as they grab each other around the shoulders, each trying to throw the other the the ground.

“What are you, Muggles?” Draco demands, the admonishment carrying sub-zero weight, as it’s conveyed in tones of titillation.

“Bros, if you’re fighting it out instead, remember: no eyes, no hair, no crotch,” Cormac instructs.

Fighting it out might, however, be an overstatement. Within a few seconds, Harry manages to use his shorter stature to his advantage, hooking a calf around the back of one of Ron’s knees and bringing them to the floor. It’s immediately evident once they are on the floor, however, that neither has yet been trained in hand-to-hand combat. Rather than really fighting, all Harry and Ron manage to do is follow shifts in momentum and roll around, first one on his back, then the other.

Harry is fully focussed on trying pin Ron when he hears what couldn’t possibly be laughter. Because this is serious. He’s defending Draco’s honour! He’s taking all comers! Well, he’s taking one comer, anyway.

“You look—you look like cartoon characters!” Hermione shrieks, before dissolving completely into laughter.

The laughter, rudely, is increasing in volume and variety; Draco and Cormac have joined in enthusiastically.

Harry wishes that this affront would energise him. But instead, he finds that brawling is tiring. His arms begin to weaken before long, and the laughter only gets louder as his hold, and, he notices with mild appeasement, Ron’s, begins to flag.

As their movements peter out, the laughter grows only louder.

His so-called lover, friend, and flatmate are reaching truly obnoxious decibels as Ron and Harry break up, each rolling onto his own back, panting. As Harry catches his breath, Hermione slumps off of her armchair, joining him and Ron on the floor. Draco and Cormac are only maintaining a standing position by virtue of leaning their weight on one another.

“It hurts!” Draco says, in what sounds like a plea.

“I’m going to piss myself,” Cormac manages to get out between uproarious peals of laughter.

Hermione is clutching her sides, her whole body shaking with mirth that has transcended sound.

“Hey!” “Come off it!” Harry and Ron shout respectively in offence.

Their objections go completely ignored by the other three.

“I—I need,” Draco tries, but he can’t compose himself enough to get out an unbroken sentence. “I need," _wheeze_ “Penseive!” _wheeze_ “Must—preserve.” _wheeze_ “Posterity.”

“Bro! Yes!” Cormac says, in endorsement.

“That’s it!” Hermione exclaims, jumping up from the ground, laughter stoppered for the moment by the whirring of her powerful mental cogs. “Draco, Cormac, try casting! Right now!”

Harry and Ron look at one another in disbelief, but Hermione’s command seems to have broken through, as Draco and Cormac both pick up their wands from the floor where they’d apparently dropped them in order to clutch each other for support.

In tandem, Draco and Cormac shout: “ _Expecto Patronum_!”

And before Harry can roll his eyes at the whole thing, flashes of silver burst from each wand and take forms decidedly more solid than broth, or even pea soup.

It’s a lot to take in at once, and at first Harry can’t figure out what he’s looking at. Then he realises it’s a silvery, waddling duck, and an ass.

Cormac is jumping, his feet kicking behind him in the air. “Fucking wicked! YES!”

Ron jumps to his feet and pulls Cormac into a crushing hug punctuated with alternating arse-slapping and shoulder-clapping.

Draco, his face full of iridescent happiness, turns to Harry and Harry thinks his own heart might explode with warmth and contentment. Is that what it’s like? When you love someone, your feelings for their trials and successes can somehow be felt even more keenly than your own?

Harry’s face splits into an enormous grin. “You did it.”

Draco takes two elegant strides to him and holds out a hand. Harry grabs it and Draco pulls him to standing.

Harry immediately presses a kiss to Draco’s lips. “You did it. I knew you could. I love you.”

Draco’s eyes widen. Draco knew that Harry loved him. Harry knew that he loved Draco. Draco knew that he loved Harry. Harry knew that Draco loved Harry. But they hadn’t exactly been in the habit of saying it. But in emotional times of epic Patronus feats, stuck words have a way of bubbling out of one’s throat. “I love you, too, you utter plonker. Did you just try to have a _fist fight_ to defend my honour?”

Harry chuckles, then narrows his eyes. “I wasn’t exactly defending what you _said_. You were an arsehole.” But Harry is still looking giddy and is clearly feeling a bit sappy.

“So help me, Salazar,” Draco drawls, “if you follow that up with ‘But you’re _my_ arsehole,’ I can guarantee that your arsehole won’t be having anything to do with me in the near future.”

Harry laughs and tugs Draco closer. “You just needed to relax, you know. Clearly me and Ron fighting isn’t your happy memory, it just helped you let go a bit.”

Draco looks suddenly and uncharacteristically open. “I just thought of you smiling at me. That was my memory. That’s enough.”

Harry, who really is a huge sap, might have been overcome with emotion, but he was interrupted by Hermione poking her head into their huddle. “Can you believe Cormac’s Patronus is a duck?” she whispers conspiratorially.

“It’s a bit odd,” Harry says, looking at Cormac and Ron, who have burst into a rousing rendition of “We Are the Champions.”

“How much do you know about duck reproduction?” Hermione asks, and Harry stares at her.

“How much do _you_ know about duck reproduction, Granger?” Draco retorts, raising one supercilious eyebrow.

“I’ll tell you later,” she says with an air of mystery. She turns around. “Hey Cormac, a duck! How do you feel about that?”

“I’m fucking stoked, Hermzza!” he enthused. “Ducks are fucking epic! Drizz, what was yours? An ass? That’s metaphorical as fuck, bro. Excellent!”

Draco stood taller. “It is a _donkey_. Donkeys are noble creatures. The donkey was the symbol of the Egyptian sun god Ra.”

Harry smiles; he would never tire of Draco’s ridiculous and extensive knowledge of obscure topics. He’s proud, he realises. He’s so freaking proud of Draco these days. With a glance at his friends, he realises that Ron and Cormac are just as proud of each other, even if that whole thing is a bit ponderous from his perspective.

“Sure, Malfoy,” Ron says with a faux-serious expression. “Your Patronus is the sun god Ra—also known as a jackass.”

Draco pinches his nose.

“So, I’ve produced a fucktacular duck Patronus, where’s my smut reward?” Cormac asks, rubbing his hands together and looking at Hermione.

Draco leans to whisper in Harry’s ear. “I hope your memory is good, Potter, because my plans for this evening include a live-action reenactment of whatever Granger is about to read.”

Harry breaks into a slow, heated smile, and whispers back, “It’s pretty dangerous to declare that before she’s read it.”

“Well I know they must be about to fuck each other senseless, and that’s my plan, so I’m willing to take my chances,” he whispers back wickedly.

Harry will never get tired of hearing that sort of thing come out of Draco’s posh mouth.

“Alright, Mione,” Ron says, “let’s hear it. Where did we leave off? They stumbled on a curse that will cause them to die if they don’t fuck?”

Hermione’s eyes lit up. “But they don’t want to do it if the other doesn’t consent, and they had a debate about whether it was possible to give true consent under such circumstances, and then they admitted that they’d both wanted to fuck each other for months even before the curse.”

“Fucking yes!” Cormac yells, waving his wand and Summoning a tray of turkey drumsticks. Harry had no idea they’d even had turkey drumsticks.

Cormac flops onto the couch, pulling Ron under his arm, grabs a drumstick and rips into it. “Go ahead, Mitza.”

Draco picks up a drumstick with elegant fingers and sits primly on the divan. He takes a small bite of drumstick, then raises an eyebrow for Harry to join him. Once Harry sits, Draco announces, “Quite right—read on, Mitza.”

Cormac smiles widely at Draco, which causes Harry and Ron to catch each other’s eyes with a look of horrified apprehension. Nothing good can come of a McLaggen-Malfoy-Granger coalition.

Hermione sits in her armchair and picks up the book. “Roland has a look of undisguised lust in his cerulean orbs, and Maurice has had enough—of the posturing, of the lies, of the unmet ache in his loins. He pushes Roland bodily against the wall, and with a moan of pleasure, their hot, wet tongues battle for dominance.”

“Wahey!” Cormac shouts, and Harry curls under Draco’s arm, basking in the warmth of happy memories, the promise of the future, and roasted fowl.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! We love comments!
> 
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